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This picture shows all the Sacrifices made by our Marine Families!!!! SSGT. Bernard J. Coyne and his wife Kathryn Coyne SSGT Coyne’s MOS is EOD, and he is stationed at Camp Lejune, NC. Kathryn lives in Jacksonville, NC with their three children, Julianna, 9, Cadence,3, Bernard III, one year old SSGT. Coyne left Jan 19th aboard the Mesa-Verde. diverted to Haiti, on it’s way to the Middle East.

After I graduated from high school in 1964 I announced to my father that I was tired of taking orders from him, tired of getting up early and tired of making my bed so I had solved all those problems. I had joined the United States Marine Corps. My dad smiled at me and said, “Well, son, it looks like your troubles are over.” I left for Marine Corps boot camp 2 days later.

I was stationed at Camp Hauge in 1958-59. The camp was right across the street from Camp Kinser. Our sport teams were called the Royals. Kinser’s were called the Streaks. The town outside the base was Chibana; however, you had to tell the cab driver you were going to Napunja. The current pro-basketball player with the Celtics (traded from the Jazz), Gordon Hayward’s grandfather was also stationed there at the time. He was also Gordon Hayward. He drove a truck that supplied the Marine EM clubs with booze.

we met in a parking lot by the B E Q s , I remember thinking wow that guy looks familiar, then it hit me , THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE ME !!! he said you look like me , I said no YOU look like me, just then two other marines came by and said hey check it out ,TWINS !!! and as with most of us vets , when we leave , we lose contact .he had gotten a medical due to pnuemonia , I think he was from L A ? GOD BLESS you all my brothers !!!SEMPRE FI

What fun it was for me to read Jim Barber’s account of sailing on the good ship Breckinridge. I, too, shipped to Japan on her January, 1958. His tales of the challenges in the forward head were honestly right on. I want to add how difficult it was maneuvering safely on the slippery liquid and other matter on that sloped tile floor in typhoon conditions. He didn’t mention the joy we experienced when the above deck dependents of other services carried their pets down the ladder to do their business on the tiny deck space the marines were mounded, gasping for fresh air. Overall, it was a fine 23 day cruise with the screw out of the water about half the time. To you and your other marine subscribers, Semper Fi.

I was in boot camp and the smallest guy in my platoon back in 1988. I was told since I was the smallest I had to be the house mouse (I had to clean the Drill instructors duty hut). The DI told me to get rid of anything that was not military.

There still seems to be some confusion over the nomenclature of “CLIP” vs. “MAGAZINE”, and current dictionaries don’t seem to help the matter much. Consulting: Merriam-Webster, 2002 online edition Clip (noun) 2: a device to hold cartridges for charging the magazines of some rifles; also : a magazine from which ammunition is fed into the chamber of a firearm.

I was in the locker room of my health club the other day reminiscing
with another Marine. Our memories took us back to Korea. He said he got out of PI in early summer of ’50 and joined the columns of Marines swarming to Camp Pendleton where the various drafts were being assembled for reinforcing the troops around Pusan. He said the brigade had already left. For some reason, lack of housing may be, he was billeted at Del Mar. One day a WO with more than 30 years in came through the area looking for volunteers. He also had several .45s, holsters and pistol belts. The gunner also had requisitioned several vehicles. He took his “volunteers”
south of the border to TJ to roundup unfortunate jarheads in the Mexican brig. He can back with 12. Said, “I’ll be damned if I would let them stay down there when there is a job to be done.”
BTW. He was quickly sent to Kobe to be “out of the way” and to handle things there when the draft arrived there on the way to the fight.
Semper Fi,
Bob Rader sgt ’53-’56, 1405534

In May of 1945, the Battle of Okinawa was raging in full force. Marines and Sailors with 1st Marine Division pushed through the prefecture and were met with heavy resistance from the entrenched Japanese soldiers.

The Medal of Honor citation tells the story; a machine-gun squad, trapped by a barrage of mortar and machine-gun fire, engages in an assault against a heavily fortified Japanese hill. The squad leader, Cpl. Louis J. Hauge, sees the two guns responsible and sprints through an opening, hurling hand grenades as he runs. He is wounded before he reaches the first gun, but he pushes through to successfully destroy both enemy positions. As the second gun placement is destroyed, he is shot by Japanese snipers. His men, seeing his actions, rise from their bombarded position and finish the bloody assault on the hill.

Then-First Lieutenant Fabayo and other members of his team led two platoons of Afghan National Security Forces into Ganjgal Village for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders when the dismounted patrol was ambushed by roughly 50 enemy fighters in fortified positions. With four fellow team members cut off, he pushed forward on foot into the kill zone in an attempt to regain contact, effectively engaging the enemy at close range with his M-4 rifle. When a U.S. Army Advisor was severely wounded, he moved from a covered position under heavy fire to assist in his recovery, helping carry him across several hundred meters of fire-swept ground. He drove back into the kill zone with another U.S. Army Advisor in an unarmored truck, despite enemy rounds impacting the vehicle, in an attempt to reach the separated team members. After treating and evacuating several wounded Afghan Forces, he took the gunner’s position on a gun-truck with three other U.S. personnel as they again drove into the kill zone to recover the bodies of the four fallen team members, providing effective suppressive fires with the vehicle mounted machine guns. By his decisive actions, bold initiative, and complete dedication to duty, First Lieutenant Fabayo reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.